The social network Instagram blocked searches for a number of political hashtags, including #democrats, #democrat, #jan6th, #republicans and others. Users who tried to search for these hashtags saw a message that «we have hidden these results» because they «may contain sensitive content».
It’s unclear how many search terms are affected, but users on Reddit reported that dozens of tags were made inaccessible. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone attributed the issue to some unspecified «» issue in a post on Threads and said the company was working on a solution.
It is noteworthy that the blocking of political hashtags occurred immediately after the inauguration of the new US President Donald Trump, which was attended by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. This immediately raised speculation about the political motives behind this «problem». Recently, Zuckerberg has decided to terminate Meta’s fact-checking programs, weakening content moderation standards that prohibited dehumanizing language and insults aimed at immigrants and members of the LGBTQ community. In addition, the company internally suspended its corporate diversity programs. However, Stone assured that the problem affected «a number of different hashtags on Instagram, not just those related to left-wing politics».
The blocking looked strange and inconsistent. For example, #Democrat, #democrats, and #republicans were inaccessible, while the hashtag #republican remained open. Users also reported blocking the hashtags #constitution, #johnoliver, and #queer. For now, Meta seems to have fixed most of the hashtag problems, but the company has not explained what exactly caused this «problem».
This is not the first time Instagram has unexpectedly blocked hashtag searches. Earlier, Meta blocked hashtags related to LGBTQ content and labeled them as «sensitive content» for several months. The company later stated that it was a mistake, saying: «We do not consider LGBTQ+ terms to be sensitive under our policies». In 2020, Instagram temporarily banned users from sharing posts with the hashtag #blacklivesmatter. At the time, the company explained this as a bug caused by spam detection features.
Source: Engadget